Chapter 24

His gaze was on the ocean in the distance, his jaw tight. It seemed as though he hadn’t heard my question at all.

I put my hand on his back. “You okay?” I didn’t know why I asked him that; it was obvious he wasn’t. He had come here tonight thinking his ex-girlfriend had invited him because she wanted to get back together with him and he had just found out she hadn’t.

“Hayden?”

“What? Yes, food. Let’s eat. Are you hungry?”

“We can leave. We don’t have to stay.”

“We’re staying.” He said it like I had dared him not to and he was rising to the challenge.

“Okay. We’re staying. You have other friends here, right?”

He nodded.

“Then let’s have fun.”

“Deal.”

We each filled a plate with food and then found two empty seats at a round table. He greeted several people then scooted his chair extra close to mine. While he ate with one hand, his other was always resting on the back of my chair, or on my shoulder, or playing with the ends of my hair. I knew it was for show and I had to keep telling myself that as chills radiated down my spine every time he touched me.

“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you at school lately,” a guy from across the table asked.

I was grateful for the distraction because Hayden moved both elbows to the table and leaned forward as he spoke. “I’ve been around. Busy with graduation stuff.”

Busy being a recluse, according to Bec.

“Well, it’s good to see you. Where are you going to school next semester?”

“San Luis. You?”

“Me too.” The guy looked at me then. “You put up with this guy, huh?”

I smiled.

“You don’t go to school with us, do you?”

I started to say no, but Hayden beat me to the answer. “She goes to Bec’s new school. We met through her.”

In a way, I guess we kind of did. He was dropping Bec off for prom. I dragged him in to be my date.

“Cool,” the guy said, then he stood, gave a head nod, and walked away carrying his empty plate.

Hayden pointed at the olives I had picked off my pizza. “What’s going on there?”

“I’m not an olive fan.”

“There were other options without olives.”

“I like the flavor the olives leave on the pizza. I just don’t like the texture of the olive itself.”

He laughed then popped one of my discarded olives into his mouth. “Weirdo.”

“Hey.”

“I like weird. Normal is so boring.”

“Right.” The problem was that I was the very definition of normal. He’d probably just learned the most interesting thing there was to know about me. I was not Eve. Not that it mattered.

I looked around and realized we were the only two sitting at the table now, leaving plenty of room for when Eve and her boyfriend wandered over and joined us.

“I’m so glad you came,” she said again when she sat down with her own food in the chair right next to Hayden. So close she could put her hand on his knee when she talked. And she did. It was obvious Hayden had been trying to make her jealous and it was obvious it was working. Maybe he’d get his wish by the end of the night after all.

“I didn’t think you would,” she continued. Her hand finally came off his leg. I wondered if my death glare had anything to do with it. She had no right to waltz around messing with Hayden’s head. He may have wanted her back, but Bec was right. This girl was bad news. I was suddenly on board with Bec’s plan of keeping this girl far away from Hayden. I leaned my shoulder against his.

“Why didn’t you think I’d come?” Hayden asked, meeting her stare. I was proud of the way he didn’t react, just gave her a look that seemed innocent.

“I should’ve known you would,” she said. “You’re such a nice guy. Isn’t he a nice guy, Mia?”

“Her name is Tia,” Hayden said.

“It’s fine, babe,” I said to him. Then I looked at her. “I never get mad when people hear my name wrong because I think to myself, Maybe they have hearing issues, excess earwax or something.”

Hayden coughed once and I could tell it was to keep himself from laughing. “You might want to get that checked out, Eve.”

Eve’s expression had gone ten degrees cooler. “I don’t have wax in my ears. Sometimes you just mumble, Hayden. Like last year in the school play when the whole audience thought you said, ‘I want to kill you,’ when you were supposed to say, ‘I want to kiss you.’”

Hayden, who had been pretty stoic since we came, cracked a smile. “Well, my line was better anyway.”

“I know. Why wouldn’t Sky want to kill Sarah, right?” She laughed.

Ryan looked as lost in this conversation as I was. Great—inside jokes.

“Kill me, baby,” Eve said in what sounded like a New York accent.

I was willing to kill her if that’s what she was asking. Hayden didn’t seem like he was on board with that plan, though, his smile still lingering. Ryan put his arm around Eve and Hayden moved back an inch, his face going hard again. I grabbed his hand and he turned to me. He brushed a kiss to my cheek so I closed my eyes.

When I opened them he said, “I want to dance with you,” using that husky voice he sometimes did.

I let him take me to the makeshift dance floor across the sand. I let him wrap my arms up around his neck and then rest his hands on my hips. For one moment I forgot we had an audience and it was for them that we were performing this show. He made me forget I had come here to try to get him out of my head.